


Where The Heart Is

by triggerlil



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Discovery, Gen, Hogwarts, Mental Illness, Self-Discovery, St. Mungos, personal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 7,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4721024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerlil/pseuds/triggerlil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fanfiction about Draco after the war, in which both Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy end up in Azkaban, and he has to re-evaluate what it means to be a Malfoy. What it means to be him .</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My House

**Author's Note:**

> I often make very short, but lots of, chapters.

“I’m home.” Draco said; louder than he had intended. It echoed throughout the empty house, looking for a pair of ears to fall on, and yet there was nothing, so it fell back to Draco. He stood in the doorway, looking around at the home he hadn’t been in for so long. His shoes clacked against the stark white tiles of the front foyer. Draco put his suitcase next to the stairs, and then took his coat and shoes off, placing his shoes on the mat near the door and his coat on the pegs. He went into the living room, avoiding the mirror. He didn’t want to see his reflection right now, he didn’t need to. The living room was a sorry state, his parents wands had been confiscated, and in a muggle like fashion they had put plastic over all the furniture; to keep it from dust and decay. They could have just put a sustainment charm on them. There were sheets over the mirrors in the living room, as if someone had known whoever was coming home didn’t want to see the themselves reflected in the sorry state of this house. Draco went upstairs.

The stairs creaked under his feet. The house had always been so silent, so well-kept. He felt the texture of the walls; in some places the wallpaper was peeling. How could a house, a mansion really, that had been so pristine turn into this in, what had seemed, to be such a short amount of time. Draco stood outside his room. The door was firmly shut, and he didn’t know if he wanted to open it. He opened it. His bedroom was the same as it had always been, he wasn’t sure why he had expected any different. The room was neat and tidy, the bed made, clothes hanging up neatly in the closet, and his books lined up perfectly on his shelf. But it wasn’t the way he liked it. He liked the way the bed was when it was slightly rumpled, but still made. He liked it when books were stacked on top of each other and were pushed in at all different angles. This God forsaken place always looked like a showroom, as if no one even lived there.

"Master Draco, Sir. Is there anything I can do for you?” A house elf apparated into the room.  Draco turned to look at them, the pointy ears, the ugly wrinkled face. Draco felt tired. He was so tired. “No, nothing right now. Just leave me be.”

“Yes, Master.” The house elf said, and promptly apperated away. Draco sighed, lay down on his bed, and closed his eyes.

 

 

 

 


	2. The Best China

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco looks into the old house, the old rooms, maybe even his old heart.

Draco woke up to a steaming tray ladled with various breakfast foods, strawberries, sausages, bacon, and sunny side up eggs. He poked through the yellow of the egg and watched it cry yolk, he moved it around the plate with his finger, smearing it over the China markings. Even his breakfast plate was some sort of fancy bought thing, what was wrong with this house? The funny thing was, it didn’t even feel empty. This was exactly how it would have felt whether his parents had been here or not. Draco didn’t bother to eat anything that morning, he didn’t even lick the yolk off his fingers. He used a beautifully embroidered napkin to wipe it clean away. Draco riffled through his closet, wondering what to wear. Blaise, Pansy, Theo, and Theo’s girlfriend Tracy Davis were all going up to Pansy’s family cottage this summer. She had invited him, and Draco had said he would think about it. But he didn’t feel like going today. He ran his hands through the various robes and shirts and suits. He pulled out outfit after outfit and hanger after hanger. But none of it was appealing. So he put on a bathrobe and decided to wear his pyjamas all day. He left the breakfast tray by his bedside, and clothes littering the room. He noticed his suitcase had been brought up. He didn’t want to unpack it.

First Draco checked upon his father and mother’s room. He found it as he had found his. Tidy and looked after. All of their things were still in place. There was no room for personal belongings at Azkaban. The room, like every God damn room in this mansion, looked like it could have belonged to a stranger. There was a newspaper on his father’s side of the bed. Draco didn’t bother checking the date. There was a pair of earrings on his mother’s bedside table, and a photo of them as a family on Christmas day when Draco was 6. Otherwise there was nothing. Nothing to mourn, nothing to cry over.

Downstairs, in his father’s study, Draco looked over the different books his father had kept, running a hand down each spine as he read the titles : A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry, Important Modern Magical Discoveries, Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, Modern Magical History, Book of Potions, Most Potente Potions, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, Hogwarts: A History, Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland, Book of Spells, Prefects Who Gained Power, Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs, and more. Draco had been expecting neat and organized rows, perhaps books sorted alphabetically, but this seemed like a mismatch of books that had been randomly placed on the shelf in order of having been acquired and read. Some were nearly falling off the shelf, he found some littering the desk, and he had expected all of the books to be quite dry titles, but indeed some seemed rather intriguing. Draco spent the day in his pyjamas, sitting at his father’s desk, and flipping through page after page of wizarding text. When he finally went up to his room, it was well past midnight. His room was back to the neat state that he had found it in.

 

 


	3. Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do when you have no motivation? When you'd probably kill yourself if it weren't for the fact that that required motivation to.

Draco didn’t eat his breakfast again that morning. He wasn’t hungry. He didn’t change out of his pyjamas either, he didn’t feel like it. Instead he worked up the courage to go into the greenhouse. It was the same as he had left it, but instead of feeling a strange stillness as with all the other rooms, the greenhouse had kept living. The plants had kept growing, flowers had bloomed and fell, new specimens had grown, the peacocks had been fed and they had thrived. Draco walked through the muggy atmosphere, feeling the petals of the various flowers and stopping to pet the silver peacock that had been a loving pet to him at a young age.

Soon Draco fell into a routine. He would wake up, ignore the breakfast tray, and spend all his time in his father’s old study or in the greenhouse. He never bothered to change out of his pyjamas unless he was changing into a different pair of pyjamas, and he even started to ignore the letters he received from his friends. He still read them, or he did at first, they became worried about him, asking him if he was okay, why hadn’t he contacted them. As the letters became more nagging Draco began to ignore those to. He ignored the house elf, telling him he had to eat. Draco almost stopped eating entirely, he skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and snacked on small things whenever he felt like it. He circled through the routine, his senses became clouded, things seemed far away, his touch seemed disconnected, he would be plagued by bouts of unnatural silence. Nothing tasted like anything anymore. The study, the greenhouse, bed, the study, the greenhouse, bed, the study, the greenhouse, bed. It was like living in a pool of stagnant water. He was barely moving, he felt horrible, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It felt as if he would never move again.

Draco made his house elf drape every mirror in the house with a blanket. He didn’t want to see his face, he didn’t want the reminder of what a sorry excuse for a wizard he was. Gaunt cheeks, dark circles under his eyes, stringy blonde hair, and a thinly, weak physique. That night he stared up at the ceiling, unable to go to sleep. Draco found this strange. Although you’d suppose that he could never sleep, seeing as he didn’t do anything all day, but not doing anything made him lethargic and tired, most nights he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. But tonight memories couldn’t stop making themselves known.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Potter’s face when Draco had held out his hand. How he’d seemed disgusted, and Draco had played it off with the same snark he always used, but he remembered his itty bitty Malfoy heart had been crumpled, stepped on, and then cut up into tiny little pieces. He’d wanted a friend, and he’d tried. Maybe to Potter, Weasley, Granger, and everyone else, it had looked like he had flung his riches and upbringing in Potter’s face and expected that to make them friends. But it wasn’t like that, not for Draco. He was horrible at making friends, all his friends had been provided to him by his family name, or by circumstance, he’d never had to _try_ to get someone to be his friend. So when he saw Potter at the robe shop, he had told him about himself and thought that would work. But it didn’t, so he’d used his smarts, and that hadn’t worked either. So he’d even tried to play the vulnerable key in the Forbidden Forest. To show that even he, Draco Malfoy, was a bloody human being, not a walking antagonist. But he had decided against it at the last minute. To much pride in his family’s name. He was still totally enraptured by everything his parents said, and if they said mudbloods and their associates were bad then they were. If his parents said that poor people were bad, then they were. But he hadn’t known any different, it wasn’t his fault.

Draco didn’t cry with those thoughts, but he almost wished he had. At least than he would have gotten some release.


	4. We Don't Eat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco laments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try and update every Saturday. Wish me luck.

No breakfast, no lunch, no supper, and not even a snack. Draco felt horrible and he looked horrible. He needed help. Serious help. That’s what he told himself. It would be so easy to. Summer was almost over, Draco didn’t want to have to go back to his eighth year like this. He had spent almost a month and a half in this stupid routine. Ignoring his bodies needs, reading the same books over and over, walking around forlornly, and staring into space in the humid interior of the greenhouse. He wasn’t even learning anything. He’d sit in the study, he no longer thought of it as his father’s study, and read books; but he wouldn’t realize what he was doing. He’d sit down, book in his lap, and then as if waking up from a daydream, he’d realize he had finished the book and put it away, and now he was standing in the hall. Except he couldn’t actually remember that he’d put the book away, let alone remember the contents of the book in the first place. In the greenhouse he’d have short little visions of the past, sometimes the future, but mostly he stared at a randomly selected spot and let his mind go blank. It didn’t feel like a month and a half either, it felt, at most, like two weeks.

At night Draco couldn’t sleep anymore, and it was the only time his mind wouldn’t turn into a blank slate. He’d lie there, in total darkness and silence, and he wouldn’t be able to keep his mind from straying. He’d remember past summers spent at Malfoy Manor or at Pansy’s cottage, he’d remember his times at Hogwarts. The scene that he couldn’t stop replaying? When he came home from his first year at Hogwarts for Christmas. It was the big dinner, and his mother had decided that they should have a family one on Christmas Eve, and then they could go to a big Christmas party on the day of. That night, before dinner, Draco had eyed himself in his full-length mirror, modeling his new Christmas outfit. He had felt so smart. He’d been so happy, so proud, so excited to spend time with his parents and tell them all about Hogwarts and Slytherin. He’d been so excited he’d called up Dobby to tell him how he looked. Draco turned in front of the mirror, hand on hip. He pulled his other hand through his hair.

"Very fine Master, you look amazing.”

“Is my hair okay?”

“Wonderful Master.”

“And what do you think of this colour?”

“It suits you very well Master. Dobby approves.”

“I never knew you had such a taste for fashion Dobby.”

“Thank you Master, Dobby-”

Dobby apparated away as Draco’s mother stepped into the room.

“Oh darling, you look lovely!” Narcissa said, taking Draco’s shoulders and turning him this way and that. “It looks superb on you.”

“Thank you mother.” Draco said, he kept a relatively calm smile, but those words meant a lot to him.

“Dinner is ready, let’s go sit at the table. Your father will be down in a minute.”

Draco and Narcissa sat at the table, and the food was layn before them. Draco reached for something straight away, but Narcissa slapped at his hand.

“We don’t eat until your father is at the table.”

 “Well I’m at the table now.” Lucius said, winking at Draco. It had been a moment where Lucius had shown his caring and playful side, a side that Draco rarely got to see as the years wore on. The various dishes circled around the table, not moving until everyone had taken their fill from the plate in front of them. Everyone was silent for the first few bites, until Narcissa asked Draco about Hogwarts. They’d been busy with Christmas preparations, and hadn’t had a chance to ask him yet.

“It was amazing! This nasty Potter boy rejected me for Weasly, but I don’t care because I walked up to the sorting hat, and it hadn’t even been placed on my head when it called out Slytherin. Can you believe that?”

Narcissa smiled at her husband. “I believe something like that happened to your father.”

“Really father? Is that true?”

Lucius smiled. “Something like that.”

Draco stuck his tongue out at his father for the ambiguous answer, and Lucius let it slide in good humor. The rest of the night went swimmingly, and Draco couldn’t wait for tomorrow. He always got a mountain of presents for Christmas. He wondered how many presents Potter would be getting. Draco slithered into the blankets, feeling giddy with excitement.

“How am I supposed to go to sleep when I’m this excited?” Draco exclaimed when his father came in and sat on the edge of Draco’s bed.

“Don’t worry, you know you always end up falling asleep.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“I say you will, and so it will be."

Lucius kissed Draco on the forehead. Thinking back, that was the last time Lucius ever really showed real affection for Draco. 

"Goodnight Draco"

“Goodnight father.”

Lucius began to leave.

“Father?”  
“Yes?

“How do I make Potter my friend? I want him to be my friend.”

“You don’t need him to be your friend. A Malfoy never grovels for someone's attention, certainly not someone who’s aligned with a mudblood. That’s as good as being a mudblood.

“Alright father.”

Lucius smiled, and shut the door. In the darkness, Draco thought that the smile had seemed more like a grimace.


	5. Out of Depth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco decides to admit himself to St. Mungos.

Draco lay in bed. Feeling sick. He called for his house elf, and they apparated into the room promptly.

“Is everything alright Master Draco?”  
“How come you know my name, but I don’t know yours?”  
“It’s Wiley, Master.”

“Well Wiley, I think I need help.”

“With what, Master?”  
“Everything.”  
“Where can Wiley start?”

“I need you to take me to St. Mungos.”

“Are you Ill, Master?”  
“In the head.”

“Does it have anything to do with Wiley?”

“Of course not you oaf, just apparate me to St. Mungos. I havn’t eaten in days, I’m going to faint if we don’t get going.”

“Certainly, Master! Right away!

Wiley grabbed onto Draco’s hand, and Draco found himself at St. Mungos. Halfway before Hogwarts was about to begin, in his pyjamas.

“Hello and welcome to St. Mungos. Are you admitting yourself or visiting?”

“Admitting. I’m Draco Malfoy, and I havn’t eaten in multiple days, I don’t know how many. There’s something wrong with my head, I don’t understand.”

Draco shivered internally when he saw the attendants demeanour shift downwardly when she heard his name.

“Take a seat and a nurse will be with you shortly.” She sniffed.

Draco kept his head high as he walked into the waiting room. Most people would recognize him, and he wanted to keep his pride. That was one thing that he would believe in, with or without the Malfoy insistence. He sat down on a soft waiting room chair, and glanced at the magazines on the table beside him. He picked up a copy of Witch Weekly, it always had the best quizzes.

 _Which Influential Witch Are You?_   Well, that’s something Draco had always wanted to know.

  1. What was/is your favourite subject at school?  
  





a. Herbology

b. Transfiguration

c. Potions

d. Divenation

e. Charms

f. None of the above

Draco didn’t even have to think about his answer. Obviously potions.

     2.  What’s your favourite colour?

a. Yellow

b. Green

c. Blue

d. Red

e. Purple

f. None of the above

Green. With silver following in a very close second. It depended on Draco’s mood really, sometimes it was silver and sometimes it was green.

    3.  Who’s your favourite member of The Weird Sisters?

a. Heathcote Barbary

b. Gideon Crumb

c. Kirley Duke

d. Merton Graves

e. Orsino Thruston

f. Donaghan Tremlett

g. Myron Wagtail

h. Herman Wintringham

Draco felt torn, but decided to go with f. Donaghan Tremlett over h. Herman Wintringham. In the end, Draco had a soft spot for the bassist.

    4.  Your hobbies include:

a. Reading

b. Drawing

c. Quidditch

d. Wizard chess

e. Chocolate Frog Cards

f.  Excerise

g. None of the above

Draco chose quidditch, but it felt a bit like he was lying. He hadn’t played quidditch in a while. Draco didn’t think dying was a valid option.

     5.   Which trait do you value most highly?

a. Honesty

b. Intelligence

c. Bravery

d. Trust

e. Humour

f. None of the above

Draco felt like honesty was really the only option.

Congratulations! You got Elladora Ketteridge! The first witch to discover the properties of Gillyweed, like you she was intelligent, witty, and often times brutally honest. She taught herself to be an expert in herbology, but only so she would have all the ingredients for her potions, which is something you can relate to. Your friends have often told you to get your head out of the books, or in this case, cauldron, but you won’t here of it. There are times for play, and there are times for potions.

Draco didn’t really know what to make of that answer. He’d never heard of Elladora Ketteridge before, he had always thought that Beaumont Majoribanks had discovered gillyweed.

“Draco Malfoy?” Called out a nurse, and Draco followed her into the examination room. He sat down on the table, and the nurse immediately began flitting about. Tapping him with her wand, and muttering to herself. A couple minutes later, she was scribbling furiously on a note pad.

“Dear boy, I think it best for you to stay here a while. You’re quite malnourished, and it seems it would be best for you to be under supervision for a while. I know you’re an adult, but I’d hate to see what would become of you if you were left to your own devices.” She paused for air, and began to slow down her speech to make sure Draco understood.

“The muggles know more about mental things than us, that’s one thing I must credit them for, and it seems you might have a minor case of some form of depression.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness or lack of interest or both, and various other emotions. It affects how you feel, think, and behave.”

“But how could I have wound up with it? I’ve been perfectly fine until this summer.”

“Well Mr. Malfoy, I checked your medical records, and your profile, and I believe it has something to do with current events.”  
“Oh.”

“We don’t have to discuss it right now if you’re not comfortable.”

“No. Go on.”

“It’s the end of the war, you’re an adult now, and both of your parents are in Azkaban. It’s also the summer, which gives you the perfect opportunity to stop being social, and for many people not being social can lead to a rapid lack of motivation. Some of us in the office refer to this as “summer blues”. Of course, your case is more severe, it seems you’ve lost interest in almost everything.”

“Exactly.”

“Also, it seems your mother had bouts of depression around your age.”

“How do you know?”

“Our records go very far back.”

Draco sighed.

“It’s a very curable disorder Mr. Malfoy. You’ll be fine before school starts.”

“Thank you.”

Draco was lead to a hospital bed, and he sat there, thinking about what had just happened. So he had “depression”. He didn’t really know what that meant, the nurse had described it well enough, but he didn’t really understand how it was possible. He didn’t feel sad right now? He just didn’t want to do things. The nurse had made it sound as if there were other things that could have been wrong with his brain, could you break a mind like you break a bone? Were there different types of depression? Or did he feel sad deep down?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to let you know that this whole fanfiction is not about Draco and depression, that's just what the next maybe two or three chapters will be about. The main focus of this story is Draco discovering what it means to be a Malfoy, and maybe there will be some romance, I havn't decided.


	6. Innocence Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morning at St. Mungos. Draco thinks further about his condition, and what it's going to mean to his future.

Draco woke up under the thin sheets of a hospital bed. The curtains were closed, and sun filtered in through the window. St. Mungos reminded him of the infirmary at Hogwarts. God, he didn't even want to go back. An eighth year, put in place for the students that were in their seventh year during the war who didn't receive a proper seventh year education. He didn't want to have to deal with the stares, and the names, and he just didn't want to deal with it. Everyone would be singing Potter's praises, whereas Draco would have all but three friends. It had felt like he was popular before, what with his name causing most Slytherins to bow down at his every word, but now his only friends would be people who were his honest to God friends before. Pansy, Blaise, Theo, and maybe a few others. The rest of the pureblood Slytherins would be calling him a traitor, and everyone else would be so very open about how much they loathed the Malfoy's. What with his parents being essential in the plans of Voldemort, and causing quite a few deaths in the battle for Hogwarts. Draco didn't want to think about it. It made him sick. He half expected to have to throw up over the side of the bed.

Draco knew his parents were bad. After the war, that's all it had said in newspapers like the Daily Prophet. Even Loony Lovegood's magazine, The Quibbler, had told about the arrest of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. Leaving behind a hurt, confused, and very hated son. The magazines didn't say that though. Even with all this news coverage, and the fact that every wizard or witch that walked the earth could tell Draco that he was better off forgetting about his parents, he couldn't stop thinking about what they would think of his every move. Would they approve of this or that action? What would they say if they could see the pureblood Draco Malfoy now? Self admitted to St. Mungos, with a mental disorder that muggles knew more about, and in his pyjamas no less.  It would be a long time coming before Draco would be released from the cloying grasp of his parents, of that he was sure.

“Mr. Malfoy? I have your breakfast here. You're malnourished and severely dehydrated. So this is very light, you can't eat to much to soon or to fast.  You wouldn't be able to hold it.” The nurse put the tray on Draco's lap, and he thanked him. The nurse then proceeded to spirit three  potions out of his pocket. Setting them on Draco's bedside.

“When you're done, I ask that you take these. This one first” The nurse tapped a navy blue potion. “This is an antidepressant. It's similar to that of the muggle's antidepressant pills. You will feel happier than normal. This potion targets different neurotransmitters. Long story short, it works towards getting rid of the different negative feelings associated with depression until they're back to normal levels. The next one you take is this,” he motioned to a lighter blue potion. “It's coupled to the antidepressants, it keeps them running through your system, and levels it out so you're not extremely giddy.” Finally, he pointed out the dark brown potion. “This last one will just help keep both the potions and your food down."

“Thank you.” Draco mumbled, and waited until the nurse was gone to look at his meal. It was a simple piece of toast with some cucumbers and a nondescript cereal with a glass of water. Draco took his spoon and submerged it in the cereal, he'd never had cereal before. When he brought it to his mouth, it smelled like, well nothing. Milk? What did milk even smell like? Milk smelled like milk. When Draco tried the cereal, he found it hard to get down. He dropped the spoon into his lap. He put his hand over his mouth, and then he forced himself to swallow the cereal. When he felt it go down, he couldn't help it, he began to cry. Not a lot of tears, not big dollops of salt water rolling down his cheeks, just tiny trickles, and it was mostly silent, but his body shook


	7. Only Child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mental health is a series of ups and downs. It's no straight path to recovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It helps to have a friend along the way.

Draco had been at St. Mungos for two days when he started feeling bad. Like really bad. At first he thought the antidepressants weren’t working, he thought that he’d go back to being depressed. When he started getting frantic the nurse came and started asking him questions and calming him down. The antidepressants were still working, but Draco was going through withdrawal. He hadn’t completed his “routine” in three days, and his brain and body didn’t know what to do. It scared him. That you could become so dependent on something, so incapable of existing without it. That’s what it felt like without his parents sometimes. 

The nurse gave him another potion, and Draco took it happily. The nurse related the potion to nicotine patches for smokers, but Draco didn’t know what that was. Something to do with muggles, the nurse said he was a muggleborn and Draco tried really really hard not to mind. Eventually he didn’t. 

That night, Draco broke out in a cold sweat. He sat in his bed, shivering, and couldn’t go to sleep. His vision was fading in and out, he felt like he was going to throw up. He let out a raspy breath, and the nurse hurried in. 

“Mr. Malfoy, are you okay?”  
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just leave me alone.”   
“Mr. Malfoy, the health of my patients is my main concern. I need to make sure you’re alright.” 

Draco glared, but allowed the nurse to begin waving his wand. Draco wanted to faint, Draco wanted to throw up, he wanted the nurse to leave him alone. 

“Mr. Malfoy everything is going to be fine, I’ll just go and get you some potions and then do some quick spells.” 

The nurse came back as quickly as he had left, carrying a small vial filled with a nice purple looking potion. 

“Dreamless sleep.” Draco deadpanned, he hated how that made him feel in the morning.  
“I know the side-effects can be rather annoying,” the nurse laughed. “But I really think this will help, sleep is usually the best answer for this sort of thing, and you may not realize it, but you’ve been calling out at night.” 

“Just give it here.”  
“Hold on, I need to perform some simple healing spells, and then you can be on your way.” 

Draco felt helpless the whole way through, how would knocking back potions every day help him. Just as Draco was about to drink the dreamless sleep potion, the nurse spoke. 

“The head doctor here believes that all of this potion taking won’t help you completely, and that your problems are more deep rooted than that. He says that you and I should have one-on-one conversations every day, starting tomorrow.”   
“Do I have a choice in the matter?”  
“Yes, but honestly, the best choice would be to accept the offer. It’s just a hunch, and don’t be taken aback, but I’m guessing you haven't had a real shoulder to lean on in a long time.” 

Draco frowned at this, he didn’t like when people made assumptions. Or tried to make his life seem like a sob story, but the nurse had a point, and Draco was disappointed that he did. 

“I like you Mr. Malfoy, you’re funny, and you’ve been really strong going through all this. I’d like to get to know you better, and I want to help you.”   
“I suppose there’s a first for everything.”  
“And if we’re going to be talking every day?” The nurse smiled. “My name’s Matt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I repeat, FRIEND. Don't get any ideas about where this is going ;)


	8. No Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Draco talk, but they don't become friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot to post today :-)

“Okay Mr. Malfoy, can I call you Draco?You can call me Matt. Unless you want to keep this more formal, in which case I’ll call you Mr. Malfoy, and you can call me Mr. Hood.”  
“Draco is fine.”

Draco wasn’t fine.

“Let’s start simple. How have you been feeling since you got here?”  
“Weird.”  
“A good weird, or a bad weird?”  
“Just weird.”  
“Would you like to elaborate.”  
“No.”

He would, but not to Matt.

“Do you think you’re benefiting from your time here?”  
“How are these easy questions.”  
“I’m sorry, would you like to start over?”

Draco would like to start his whole life over.

“It’s fine. I’m probably benefiting, if just from actually eating a proper meal and being able to fall asleep.”  
“Yes, okay, that’s good. Would you like to elaborate on you feeling weird yet?”  
“I just feel different, but not necessarily in a bad way. It’s hard to explain.”  
“Could you try?”  
“Well I’m not the way I was at home, I don’t forget things, I don’t feel so nostalgic and weird in the bad way. But I feel like a fake, or a poser or something. Like this whole thing isn’t even real. No. I know it’s real, but I feel detached. That’s how I would describe it. I feel so bloody detached from everything.”  
“That’s a feeling that a lot of patients at St. Mungos get. They end up detaching themselves from the experience because they don’t want to deal with certain things, and well, like I said, they end up feeling extremely detached and ‘strange’”.  
“I have been feeling detached and strange.”  
“You don’t seem at all like the newspaper’s described you.”  
“Don’t get started on that. Let’s stick to the topic.”

“Of course. What do you want to get out of your time at St. Mungos?”  
“Besides being totally cured? The ability to go about school seemingly normal, and not fall back into some weird routine. Fuck. I just want to get out of here. St. Mungos, Hogwarts, Britain, maybe even the whole wizarding world.”  
“Why is that?”  
“I don’t want to have to deal with it. And I’m so different, I don’t like it.”  
“Okay, let’s start with this. What do you not want to deal with?”  
“EVERYTHING. My parents were The Dark Lord's top Death Eaters. Everyone hates me. I don’t know, shut up. The stares. The fact that no one accepts me, or anything about me, or like that I’m not my parents and just. It’s just all. I want out.”  
“And how do you feel different?”  
“I talk funny.”  
“What?”  
“It’s not eloquent.”  
“You mean slang?”  
“My parents would be ashamed.”  
“Let’s talk about your parents.”

“I don’t want to talk anymore.”  
“Okay Draco.”  
“Goodbye.”

Matt got up and left, throwing a side long glance back at Draco before he pushed aside the white curtains. Draco lay back, he hadn’t looked in a mirror in a long time, and he wasn’t getting any exercise. Maybe he could get an early release. They could send him back home with enough potions to last him till the end of summer, and if they wouldn’t let him he could compromise to meet up with Matt every week for counselling.


	9. Wicked Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco catches a glimpse of someone, and goes into cardiac arrest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late, I got out of inspiration for a little while.

_Draco mounted his broom, the latest, from his father. He rose up and hovered above the crowd, picking out various familiar faces. He waved at Pansy, Blaise, and Theo, and then he circled over the Gryffindor bench, feeling a bit like a hawk circling its prey. This was the final game of the season, Gryffindor vs Slytherin. The day was a dreary one, grey and sulking. Draco’s world was awashed with black and whites, like an old bw photography from his parents collection. The game began, and Draco bided his time looking for the Snitch while his teammates tried to get enough points for the Snitch to actually matter. Draco couldn’t stop seeing the newspaper headings; Ireland wins, but Krum catches the snitch. Draco spotted a glance of gold out of the corner of his eye, yet when he swivelled around on his broom, there was nothing. With a nod from Marcus, the hunt was on._

_Draco glanced over at the Gryffindor seeker, Matt Hood. Draco played around with the name in his brain. It felt off. From up above, Draco had full view of the court. He turned around on his broom. He saw Matt speed off, and the chase began. Soon after Draco had sped down towards Matt, he had spotted the snitch for himself, and soon the two were neck and neck. Hands outreached, both hoping to catch the snitch._

_“One of the most daring chases of this season!” The announcer cried, as people’s eyes followed Draco and Matt across the field. Draco’s fingers felt the brush of metal, and before he knew it, his hand was closed around the tiny fluttering snitch. Draco laughed, it felt so nice to have brought home the win to his team, although he couldn’t have done it without them. He spun up and about, coming above the clouds in celebration. He heard someone on their broom behind him._

_“Bugger off Hood, you’ve los- Potter?”_

_“Malfoy.”_

_“What are you doing here?”_

_“I’m the Gryffindor seeker.”_

_“No you’re not, the Gryffindor seeker’s Matt.”_

_“What are you talking about?”_

_Potter came towards him, edging over carefully on his broom. Draco just stared on, almost to confused to move. He wasn’t scared of Potter. Yet before Draco, Harry Potter began to transform. So many quibs and teases about how Potter succumbed to Dementors, and yet here in front of Draco’s eyes, Harry Potter was becoming the dementor._

_“Where’s Matt now?” The Dementor asked, leaning down for a kiss._

_“Who’s Matt?” Draco breathed, inching up to meet him, feeling all the happiness being sucked away. Everything faded to black._

Draco woke up with a strange sort of gasp and the feeling that he needed to cry. He rolled around in his bed for a while, but no tears could fall, he was so sad that he felt as if he’d never cry again. It was as if he’d honestly been kissed by a dementor. Draco trid to shake the thoughts away, but they kept coming. They fell upon him like rain, bogging him down. He didn’t want to move, he didn’t want to exist. He wanted to die. He wanted to fucking die. Draco lay in bed, feeling sick to his stomach, realizing he wanted to die.

Draco Malfoy, heir, or should that be head, of the Malfoy clan and pretty rich boy since day 1, wanted to die. Not in the conventional way, because Malfoy’s, even in the throes of pain, were never conventional. Draco wanted to die in the way that he just didn’t give a fuck anymore. When he thought about it, he didn’t even want to die. He was just so sick and tired of everything, and so fucking depressed, and so out of the loop, that he just wanted to end it all now because he honestly couldn’t see anything else he could be doing with his life.

The feeling in his stomach made him feel as if he was about to vomit, but he knew he never would, and he knew the feeling had to do with the whole wanting to die thing. The closest he could think of to ever feeling this way were the butterflies one acquires when nervous.

Draco got up to go to the toilet. The one in his immediate area was in use, so he was forced to walk through the hall to the public ones. He passed by a few nurses and even one or two patients. He gave them wary glances and found himself judging them based on appearances, only to mentally take the comments back at lightning pace when he remembered what he must look like. Draco stopped outside the toilets, hand on the door, trying to will himself into being ready to face the multiple mirrors on the other side.

When he stepped past the swinging door. He was faced with himself in two different mirrors. It was only two. He could handle it.

Draco turned away quickly. He used the toilet, washed his hands, and got out as fast as possible. He couldn’t handle it. He looked like a ghost. His hair had always been pale, a platinum blond if you will, but now it seemed almost white. His skin was shallow, even paler than he had thought possible, and his eyes... He didn’t want to get started on his eyes. Always the loveliest silver. He had admired his own goddamn eyes for looking like two Sickles. Yet when he glanced at his own reflection, he couldn’t help noticing that his irises were drab. They were dull and they were disgusting. Like grey rain clouds that had been hanging over everyone for far too long.

Draco hurried through the halls, eyes bouncing wildly off the walls. He turned the corner to his room. Everything stopped. Spiders stopped crawling in the walls, cars stopped outside, Draco’s heart stopped beating inside his chest. Everything stopped for 20 seconds as Draco watched Harry Potter walk into a room. There was no doubt in Draco’s mind that it was Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the chosen one, etc etc. What was he doing here? Why did he have to show up now? Why did Draco have to look like this? As Draco walked past the door, he tried to peer in, but he couldn’t make out whoever it was inside, although, he could hear Potter’s voice, a slight murmur coming through the open door.

Draco didn’t bother trying to decipher what was being said, he didn't dare risk discovery. If the boy who lived saw Draco Malfoy when he was in such a state, he really would kill himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not the most tasteful ending :)


	10. Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you lie just because it's easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter to make up for the fact that I didn't post for two weeks

Draco’s time perception had begun to wither under the anti-depressants gaze. It felt as if it had been mere days since he had seen Harry Potter, mere days since he had had that weird dream, mere days since he had been admitted to St. Mungos in the first place.

Yet here he was sitting with Matt for their last in hospital counselling session.

“I’ve seen some real improvement since you’ve been here Draco, I know thist must have been hard for you, and I also know you don’t really like sappy things, but I just wanted to say that I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Matt glanced at his clipboard. “Now, you said you’d be visiting your parents soon.”

“I will be.”

“I’m wondering if the visit might be too soon after your release, and whether facing your parents so soon might be detrimental.”

“I’m going to have to visit them sooner or later.”

“That’s true, but there’s no need to be hasty.”

“I want to do this.”

“Okay, If that’s what you think is best.”

“I do.”

“I know I’ve said I think you’ve improved, but do you believe you’ve improved?”

“I do.”

“Care to elaborate? It’s hard to get information on your recovery if you give clipped answers.”

“I don’t need my routine. I feel happy. I’m fine.”

“Is there anything you specifically want to talk about?”

“What happens if I get depression again?”

“Well, it doesn’t really work like that. Depression and mental health in general is a rise and fall. You have good days and bad days. There will be days when it feels as if the depression is ‘gone’, and days when it feels as if it’s come back even worse than before.”

“Then what’s the point of any of this?”

“Because you CAN get better, it’s just a long process that involves a lot of one step forward two step back kind of scenarios.”

“How do I know when the depression is all gone?”

“It may never be all gone. It may be a bit like pneumothorax or some such illness, you can get treated and leave the hospital for a while, but you might have to come back now and again for check ups and the likes.”

“So how do I live my life? It’ll never go away?”

“Well for the first question, like I’ve said, there are gonna be hard days. You generally will find that once you get out there it’ll be fine, and you kind of have to muscle through it. But it’s hard for me to answer the second question.”

“Why?”

“We don’t really have enough information on your particular case to really say if this will go away or not. If it’s seasonal depression than it may come back next summer and the summer after that until an indefinite period in the future. If it’s any number of things it may go away by the time you’re done 8th year, or it may not go away until you retire, or it may go away and then come back when you retire.”

Draco rubbed his eyes, and dragged his hands down his face. 

“It’s not as bad as I think I made it sound.”

“It sounds tiresome.”

“It gets better. You just have to try and live out your days one by one, not thinking too hard about the future unless you really need to. Although everyone deals with depression differently.”

“Okay.”

Draco and Matt went through some more debriefing, and when Draco was alone he began to think about the future. Even though he shouldn't be, and even though he didn’t really need to.

He was weak now, how would he play on the quidditch team? And what would he do in Hogwarts. How would he be able to take his anti-depressant without anyone else catching on.

That night, Draco thought about the things he had said to Matt. He had lied. He didn’t really think he was better. He didn’t know. How could you tell? He didn’t even get it, he didn’t want to get it, he just wanted to skip to the days when he was no longer feeling this way.


	11. Residence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to posting on Saturday's.

Home. This wasn’t Draco’s home. Home smelt like cleaning fluids and was full of fluorescent white things and people in scrubs. Home felt bustling and full, and it felt a little like numbness, but in a good kind of way. This smelt like disuse, like dust, and looked like every rich, soulless house Draco had ever been in. It felt like emptiness, it felt like loneliness, it felt like the horrible mind killing kind of numbness and it felt like despair. It felt like Draco didn’t want to be there, so he dropped the small bundle of his things from St. Mungos in the front foyer, slammed the door just to let some of the frustration out, and decided to go for a walk.

There was a forest behind Malfoy Manor, that was practically the backyard, so Draco began winding his way down a small path. He had walked this path before, many times. Once he had even walked it with his father, but that was a memory of his father that, like many others, had ended badly. It was one that he did not care to recall.

The path was thin and winding, a gritty trail that lead far into the forest. Draco couldn’t quite recall if it lead anywhere in particular. Tiny stones littered the path and the pounding of Draco’s feet on the hard packed dirt was enough of a rhythm to keep him moving. The trees stood; tall and rigid, their leaves wide and fanning, a green that was just a tad brighter than the green of Slytherin. Although the trees weren’t the type to create great sprawling forests, as those one could find in Canada, but moss and vines hung around the branches of the trees, and they grew so closely together that it almost seemed like a jungle.

Draco felt at home surrounded by all of this. The light filtering through the green leaves reminded Draco of the Slytherin common room. Everything here felt surreal, and Draco revelled in it. He revelled in the fact that these trees could not judge him, that this ground did not mind supporting him, and that this air didn't want to suffocate him.

When Draco returned back to Malfoy Manor he still wasn't exactly ready to face the house, nor Hogwarts, nor his parents. 

“Hello Master.”

Draco looked down upon Wiley for a few seconds, debating with himself on what he should say. If his parents were here he would not be hesitating to not only look down upon the house elf, but to also speak down to them. For an instant Draco saw in his mind, clear as day, Granger’s S.P.E.W. buttons. He shuddered.

“Good morning... Wiley.”

“Is there anything I can do to be of service, Master?”

“No.” Draco paused. “But don’t call me Master, Sir is fine.”

He was trying at least.

“Of course, Sir.”

Wiley crackled out of view. Draco still didn’t know where he stood with his parents and his parents values, but he knew that he didn’t need to take that out on the house elf. Draco realized that this was one step farther away from his parents ideals, his parents image, and his parents themselves.


End file.
